There are times when I am really really glad that I have creative projects to fill my time, occupy my hands and keep me mentally engaged.  The weather has been very typically spring – like here, in that it varies from 75 and sunny to cloudy and damp and chance – of –  snow – ish.  Not really conducive to a lot of outdoor work yet.  Also not so much to sending the kids outside to play to preserve cleanliness inside.  They are home this week on spring break, and I had hoped to keep them out of doors, but so far it hasn’t worked out quite so well.  I may be spending time today putting some energy into creative games and projects for them to do.  There’s a new game called Scrabble Slam I want to get, but I can’t seem to find it anywhere.   It looks fun, plus it would be a good exercise in vocab for the girls.  Meanwhile they are driving me crazy fighting over the Wii and arguing about anything and everything else they can.

Saturday was the one really great day we’ve had since spring break began.  It was sunny and warm and Paul was in more of a mood to spend quality time with us than work.  It was ncie to have a lazy and slow start to the day and Oona enjoyed having papa with her.  She even let me do her hair!

Not that it came out that great, what with her fidgeting and all.   Notice the ginger ale she manipulated away from Paul by batting her cute little eyes and saying soda please.

Emily mowed the lawn for us, and did a pretty great job to boot.  What really amazed us was that as she started up the hill we saw her stop suddenly and disengage the blades, turn to us and yell “Gekko!!” We ran up to her and sure enough, in the grass in front of the spot where she stopped was a small lizard, camouflaged well enough that I still cannot believe she saw him.  I certainly would have mowed right over him.  Paul picked him up and transferred him to my garden so he’d be safe.

Research showed him to be an eastern fence lizard that is pretty common around these parts.  And they eat spiders.  Did you hear that?  I’m thinking about maybe starting a new life as a lizard herder.  I hope he’s got lots of friends.

Alas, after the Saturday fun (and ice cream cones for dessert) things have fallen into a slump.  Yesterday I went to the dentist and was informed that the expensive crowns I had “installed” about 4 years ago all need to be redone, courtesy of the constant vomiting and reflux from my last pregnancy.  Geez at this rate if I have another baby I’ll lose all my teeth altogether!  Stomach acid plus teeth equals bad news.  I don’t even want to tell you what the estimate is for that.  Let’s just say I could buy a car.    A crappy not – so – luxury – or – top- of – the – line type of car, but a car nonetheless.  And my day got even better.  A routine test at the doctor’s office came back “not good”.  Now I get to go have a “procedure” and further testing.  Fun for me!  Actually it’s not that big a deal, really.  It’s a fairly common thing from what I’ve been told.   I like to think of it all as a little reminder from my dear friend, the Universe that things can’t be too good for too long or things become too unbalanced.  That’s how I get to sleep at night anyway!  I’m just glad I have family right now.  You need people to talk to, and as I have not heard from my friend with the abusive spouse (and I’m not sure I will after I told her I want nothing to do with him ever again),  I’ve been feeling a bit lonely (I expect that’ll change once the weather warms up – I have friends in the neighborhood with kids but we’ve all been cooped up inside with the rain).

So to keep my sanity and not give in to the anxiety demons I am diving deep into the fabric and yarn stashes to work the creative mojo and crank out some fun projects.  I’ve got some things started for me from  Weekend Sewing as well as some projects for all 3 girls from the Japanese sewing books I got on Ebay.  Knitting has been taking a bit of a back seat lately as I work off my sewing obsession but I do have a few cute projects to start on the needles as well.  I’ll post updates on that as they pop up.  Mexico’s coming up at the end of the month and I do plan on bringing my knitting.  You know, there’s nothing sexier than a ghostly white – skinned woman on the beach knitting. It’s what all the hotties are doing.